"Every handset could have a basic medical diagnostic tool built in," he said. "Smart phones don’t have to work on 4G there, they could talk to each other in a mesh network."

Schmidt called the net a "digital watering hole", and saying that for nomadic people embrace technology that improves their lives, citing solar chargers for mobile phones and satellite phones as examples.

“Technology is a leveller, those with nothing will have something,” he added.

"There will be fewer places for dictators, it will be easier to organise against dictators - we saw that in the Arab Spring. In times of war and suffering, it will be impossible to ignore cries for help," he added, referencing Assad’s brutality in Syria as an example.

He had high praise for the people who will built this vision. "Developers," he said, "Are the engineers of human freedom.”

Schmidt spoke passionately against internet regulation.

“Do not vulcanise the internet," he said. "Do not give in to anything that will divide the internet, with parts of it managed in different ways, even if it seems logical now. I cannot be emphatic enough."

Schmidt did not mention SOPA, PIPA or ACTA directly, but rather mentioned in the Q & A session that there are "many" ways that governments are trying to regulate the internet.

He said they will fail: "The internet is like water, it will find a way around the restrictions."

In the Q & A session, he showed a brief glint of humour when an Iranian audience member asked when he would lift the ban on Chrome downloads in Iran. As a US company, Google is barred from trading with Iran under the embargo "We can't violate US law, and in prison, there’s no bandwidth.”